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TAC 2011 Przemek’s language odyssey | ||
Tags: Swahili | Hindi | Turkish | Portuguese | Multilingual | Arabic | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5174 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 16 07 January 2011 at 7:13am | IP Logged |
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Ooohh, my bad. I definitely do NOT want to scare you away from learning Swahili. In
fact, I was excited cos I've always felt there was a dearth of Swahili learners on this forum. Maybe we just had a different understanding regarding the term "class". Apparently, your textbook has broken it down based on category, i.e. humans, trees, long & thin objects, abstract nouns etc. When I mentioned "class", I was thinking about it from a purely grammatical point of view. In Swahili, class is known as "ngeli" and the conjugations/markers for each "ngeli" are different. For example, kiti = chair (class 7) and viti = chairs (class 8). But if you want to say "This chair is good.", you'll say "Kiti hiki ni kizuri." while "These chairs are good." is "Viti hivi ni vizuri." Bottom-line though, is that these become straight-forward pretty quickly. So don't give up on Swahili. I have an interest in your log since I'm learning Arabic (and Swahili) currently and I would like to hopefully start on Russian this year. (I've just learnt the Cyrillic alphabet.) I figured we could help each other out. Anyways, good luck once again. Edited by strikingstar on 07 January 2011 at 8:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6476 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 10 of 16 17 January 2011 at 1:15pm | IP Logged |
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Time to report a bit what I was doing during last two weeks.
Swahili I focused on Swahili. I did two more lessons from “Colloquial Swahili”. They introduce pronouns and demonstratives, which are plenty! Each class has its own! So I decided to work through these two chapters along with FSI Swahili Basic Course which (as many of you know) has many exercises to drill grammar. I studied 20 lessons from FSI. It is much easier now for me to remember all those prefixes and other “fixes”, but it will take time to be fluent with all of them. I try not to break down over it. The truth is - because of the structures used with classes - Swahili is the most difficult language I've learned so far. It's really more difficult than Hindi! I have two or three friends on Facebook who wrote to me in Swahili. I answered in easy words to them. It was funny and I was very proud that I understood what they had written! Russian I finished Pimsleur Russian I and began part II. This morning while on my road to work I did lesson 1. It is relatively easy for me to learn Russian, as my mother tongue is Polish which in many aspects works in a similar way. Turkish I re-studied some aspects of Turkish grammar and language use, such as conditional, future tense, telling the time and some other things. I tried to watch some news on TRT (Turkish national TV station), but without much success. Arabic I did third and forth lessons from “Teach Yourself Arabic”. Italian I watched a bit some Italian TV programs. That’s all. Portuguese I watched some TV News programs. I did two chapters from “Aprende and mejora tu portugues” (bought in Spain and in Spanish) which is for beginners, but I think it is good to rework on things you already know. Hindi I will get to it this week. Edited by Przemek on 17 January 2011 at 1:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mistral Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 5930 days ago 160 posts - 179 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, German | Message 11 of 16 21 January 2011 at 4:30pm | IP Logged |
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Łał, widzę, że nie próżnujesz. Uczenie się na raz aż 7 języków to nie byle wyzwanie ;) Domyślam się, że bardziej zależy Ci na wszechstronności w językach niż na dokładnym opanowaniu każdego z nich, prawda? Moja lista języków, których chciałabym się nauczyć jest przeogromna, no ale daleko bym nie zaszła ucząc się ich wszystkich na raz. Masz może jakieś sprawdzone metody, żeby to wszystko pogodzić? Że nie mieszają Ci się te języki?
Trzymam kciuki! Edited by Mistral on 21 January 2011 at 4:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6476 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 12 of 16 22 January 2011 at 11:31am | IP Logged |
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Witaj! To prawda, uczę się wielu języków, a chciałbym jeszcze więcej! Część języków chcę znać bardzo dobrze, włącznie ze slangiem, czy różnymi "smaczkami" gramatycznymi i językowymi, np. hiszpański. W przypadku innych - wystarczy mi, że się dogadam i będę rozumiał program TV czy artykuł w gazecie, np. Hindi czy obecnie Swahili.
W przypadku niektórych języków jest mi łatwiej, bo uczę się ich od dawna (tak jak angielski, którego nie ma w moim spisie) czy hiszpański oraz włoski. Dzięki satelicie odbieram programy w tych językach, czytam też książki, mam znajomych, kontakty służbowe, więc utrzymywanie ich znajomości i pogłębianie wiedzy nie jest trudne. Trudniej jest z Hindi czy obecnie ze Swahili, którego się uczę. Nie mam żadnych programów TV w tych językach, ale zawsze jest Internet. Na szczęście będąc na wakacjach w Indiach przywiozłem sobie trochę rzeczy do czytania i filmów, więc myślę, że nie będzie z tym problemów. Poza tym, jak już zapewne wiesz, ucząc się kilku języków, znajomość jakiegoś języka może pomóc w zrozumieniu reguł rządzących innymi. W moim przypadku dzięki znajomości Hindi znam tak zwaną strukturę ergatywną, która w wielu językach azjatyckich służy do konstruowania czasu przeszłego. A dzięki znajomości hiszpańskiego wiem co to jest tryb łączący (subjuntivo), który - o czym wielu nauczycieli hiszpańskiego nie wie - jest też w języku polskim, w postaci na przykład: Chciałbym, żebyś to zrobiła. Ucząc się języka polskiego, my Polacy, nie zauważamy, że to odrębna konstrukcja, służąca między innymi do wyrażania życzeń. Wiele osób, które uczą się hiszpańskiego narzeka na subjuntivo, po prostu nie zdając sobie sprawy, że używa go na co dzień. No dobra, koniec wymądrzania się. Życzę powodzenia z Twoimi językami! Edited by Przemek on 26 January 2011 at 11:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5454 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 16 23 January 2011 at 4:47am | IP Logged |
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Przemek,
Good luck with your TAC '11 challenge this year! I am also going to try to do a plethora of languages, so your progress can help keep me motivated (last year I attempted to do a bunch of Pimsleur courses... but they started putting me to sleep). Buena suerte, -Slacker 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6476 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 14 of 16 23 January 2011 at 9:43am | IP Logged |
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Thanx Slacker
For me too Pimsler seems sometimes boring, and in fact it doesn't teach you much. But on the other hand it helps me to automatize some structures and phrases. And it can be used while I am going to work by car. The fact is I never listen to the radio or music in the car, but to the language courses. Even if I don't do Pimsleur, I just listen to the recordings in other languages. When I hear some things over and over they got into my memory much easier. Good luck with your languages. PS. I see you learn Portuguese. Is it European or Brazilian version? Edited by Przemek on 26 January 2011 at 11:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6476 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 15 of 16 24 February 2011 at 1:37pm | IP Logged |
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It’s been quite a while since I wrote here about my studies. I was so busy with my professional work and other things in my private life that I was not able to spend much time writing. And I created my own blog. Some time ago I decided I would go online which will force me to write more in the languages I know best that is English and Spanish (apart from Polish, of course). And I returned to my workout in the gym, which takes much time too. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn at all.
Here is a brief description of what I did lately. Swahili As I’ve already written, this year I am focusing on Swahili – my first African language (not counting Arabic, of course). I stopped at lesson 6 from “Colloquial Swahili” and I took to FSI course to drill-drill-drill pronouns and adjectives and their prefixes. As I wrote each noun class and pronoun has its own prefix which has to be added to create adjective and pronoun. Here’s (more of less) how it works: -angu is a stem for “my” *chungwa (orange), machunga (oranges) requires l- and y- to create pronouns, giving: chunga langu – my orange, machunga yangu – my oranges *kitu (thing), vitu (things) requires ch- and vi- to create pronouns, giving: kitu changu – my thing, vitu vyangu – my things each class has its own set of prefixes Prefixes are used to create verbs, adjectives, pronouns and to express some other structures. It's the more difficult that sometimes prefixes are the same for some structures and different for others. It sounds logical but it’s not that easy to use it in practice, especially when you have to add several prefixes in one sentence, which obviously is the commonest situation. I am now at lesson 30 of FSI course. Russian While on my road to work this morning I did lesson 25 of Pimsleur Russian II, and on my way back - lesson 26. I must admit I quite like my Russian lessons (otherwise that when at school). Turkish I studied a few more lessons from “Colloquial Turkish”. Now I am at lesson no. 12. I struggle through “while” and “as soon as; when” structures which, as nearly everything in Turkish works as suffixes. Here’s how it works: Okuldayken Rusça öĝrendim. (While I was at school, I learned Russian.) okul – school, -da – in, -ken – while (here with an inserted “y”) Eve gelince, yemeĝi yedim. (As soon as I came home, I ate [the food].) Ev – home, -e – mean direction to somewhere; -ince – when, as soon as Suffix –ince chanes according to the vowel harmony in Turkish and may have one of the four forms: -ınca, -unca, -ince, -ünce I watched some news on TRT-Türk (Turkish national TV station). Arabic I reviewed third and forth lessons from “TY Arabic”. Italian I watched some Italian TV programs. Portugues I watched some TV News programs. I did two more chapters from “Aprende y mejora tu portugues”. Hindi The book I’m going to study is still waiting for better times. And now something new! I added French to my list. I decided to slow a bit with Arabic, having two difficult languages, namely Swahili and Turkish. French is easier because of my knowledge of other Romance languages. I studied 10 lessons from “Francuski dla początkujących” (French for beginners - in Polish). I also did 6 lessons of FSI French Revised. I like it because it has soooooooo many exercises. Edited by Przemek on 25 February 2011 at 10:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Przemek Hexaglot Senior Member Poland multigato.blogspot.c Joined 6476 days ago 107 posts - 174 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, SpanishC2, Italian, Portuguese, French Studies: Turkish, Hindi, Arabic (Written) | Message 16 of 16 24 February 2011 at 1:49pm | IP Logged |
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Great news for all Swahili learners: Simon and Schuster is going to publish Swahili 30-lessons course this year. :) They didn't announce the exact date. Pity their courses are so expensive:(
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